Authoritarian Ideology Research Articles

Whispers of genocide: racist and colonial legal practices of the Brazilian dictatorship towards Indigenous peoples

ABSTRACT Towards the end of the 1960s, as accusations of genocide against Brazil appeared in several national and international newspapers, a sense of growing unrest crept into the military dictatorship. In 1968, the United Nations organised the First International Conference on Human Rights in Tehran. The dictatorship’s legal argumentation was based on an assimilationist orientation directed at ‘civilizing’ the Indigenous population and ignoring genocide allegations. The military regime intertwined a tradition of civilising mission with an authoritarian ideology of national unity to produce racist and colonial legal practices towards Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Reports of genocide caused quite a stir among activists and academics, but the Tehran episode also illustrates how events unfolding in international arenas such as the Conference did not substantially vex the Brazilian dictatorship. Exactly seven months after the meeting, the regime passed the Institutional Act 5, which inaugurated the most repressive years of its history. To subsidise such points, we review documents found in the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Political Expression in Non-mainstream Metaphorical Music:Exploring the Metaphorical Musical Works of Hong Kong, China-based Artist Wong Yiu Ming

The intensification of authoritarian ideology and censorship in China has made it increasingly challenging to communicate politically sensitive messages through cultural products (Ye and Zhao, 2023). To navigate these constraints, it is crucial to examine the strategic use of political metaphors in music. This dissertation explores the political metaphors embedded in the musical oeuvre of Wong Yiu-Ming (Anthony Wong), a prominent artist from Hong Kong, China. Through a comprehensive analysis of imagery and textual content, this study investigates how these metaphors facilitate the expression of political orientations and assesses the impact of Wong's identity and actions on his audience. The findings suggest that non-mainstream music holds a distinct political significance compared to mainstream music. Metaphorical representations in non-mainstream music effectively challenge state power by circumventing censorship, leveraging the global industrial network, enabling political expression, and aligning with the artist's multifaceted identity.

Understanding and explaining populist radical right parties’ commitment to animal welfare in Western Europe

ABSTRACT Populist radical right parties (PRRP) are considered to be supportive of domestic environmental protection. In this context, scholars stress the importance of animal welfare, arguing that nativist and authoritarian ideologies provide discursive links to the issue in multicultural Western societies. Others argue that the fascist origins of some European PRRP still manifest themselves in supportive positions on animal welfare. This study attempts to map PRRPs’ engagement and positions on animal welfare and to explain the differences within the party group. Using partly computer-assisted content analysis of PRRP election manifestos and Twitter campaigns in eight Western European countries, we find that PRRP are more committed to animal welfare than several other party families but vary considerably in their engagement and position on the issue. It is argued that the involvement depends on whether animal welfare is a prominent issue in the party system and whether PRRP have fascist roots.

Conspiracy thinking and the long historical shadow of Romanticism on authoritarian politics.

Similar effect sizes have been reported for the effects of conspiracy, pseudoscientific, and paranormal beliefs on authoritarian attitudes, which points to a conceptual problem at the heart of the conspiracy literature, namely lack of clarity as to what uniquely defines conspiracy beliefs and whether those unique elements contribute distinctly to authoritarian ideologies. To our knowledge, this is the first study to test empirically the predictive power of variance unique to each construct against covariance shared among these constructs when predicting authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. Online survey was administered to 314 participants in 2021 that included a battery of demographic and psychological measures. Hierarchical factor models were used to isolate unique variance from shared covariance among responses to items representing conspiracy, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Structural equation models were used to test their unique and shared effects on authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. We found that our combined measurement model of paranormal thinking, conspiracism, and pseudoscience exhibited exceptional model fit, and that each construct was strongly predictive of both SDO and RWA (r = 0.73-0.86). Once the shared covariance was partitioned into a higher order factor, the residual uniqueness in each first order factors was either negatively related or unrelated to authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. Moreover, the higher order factor explained the gross majority of variance in conspiracy (R2 = 0.81) paranormal (R2 = 0.81) and pseudoscientific (R2 = 0.95) beliefs and was a far stronger predictor (β = 0.85, p < 0.01) of anti-democratic attitudes than political partisanship (β = 0.17, p < 0.01). Strong partisan identifiers of both parties showed much higher romanticism scores than party moderates. When predicting authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes, we found no empirically unique contributions of conspiracy beliefs. Instead, we found that a shared factor, representing a 'romantic' mindset was the main predictor of authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. This finding potentially explains failures of interventions in stopping the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory researchers should refocus on the shared features that conspiracy thinking has with other unwarranted epistemic beliefs to better understand how to halt the spread of misinformation, conspiracy thinking, anti-science attitudes, and even global authoritarianism.

Personality traits, democratic support, and authoritarian nostalgia

AbstractObjectiveWhy do democratic voters feel nostalgia for an authoritarian past? This article introduces a dispositional framework for authoritarian nostalgia, showing that in addition to situational factors, an enduring source of sentimental longing for the authoritarian past may very well be rooted in a person's core psychological structure.MethodsI use mixed‐methods approach with data collection from South Korea and Taiwan. Using linear regression models with interaction terms, I analyze the contingent effects of personality traits on authoritarian nostalgia.ResultsI find that people high in emotional stability are likely to be nostalgic and that the trait's effects are greater than those from other traits traditionally associated with authoritarian ideology. Results from the interaction model show that these impacts are more pronounced with weak and moderate democrats but not with strong democrats.ConclusionPeople high in emotional stability are nostalgic due to their longing for the proven socioeconomic performance of the past. In addition, the democratic values of individual citizens can constrict how personality shapes voters’ view of former dictatorships.

Halal Fiction and Female Agency

ABSTRACT: Contemporary Muslim writing, both in the US and in England, is witnessing the emergence of woman-centered fiction that puts Islam front and center. "Halal fiction," coined by Farial Ghazoul to refer to a new mode of writing advocating a theologically-conceived and ideologically-established worldview, has been used to describe the works penned by Leila Aboulela ( The Translator and Minaret ) and Umm Zakiyyah ( If I Should Speak trilogy). Both writers have drawn praise from certain segments of the Muslim population, and attracted a robust readership. However, the critical reception of these works remains divided: a group of scholars celebrate the subversive politics of halal fiction that presents Islam as a source of empowerment for women while others express reservations about the way halal fiction validates a skewed image of the Muslim woman aligned with patriarchal norms of gender identity. This paper focuses on the thematic, critical, and aesthetic challenges of halal fiction. It argues that rather than affirming individual agency as a significant component of self-actualization, halal fiction appears to endorse a type of womanhood based on consensual subordination, and voluntary withdrawal from the world. Furthermore, halal fiction reveals a divergence in the utilization of the novel itself, largely because of that genre's strong association with secularism and dialogism. This all suggests that there is a visible discrepancy between the alleged politics of the work (Islam as a redeeming code of ethics) and its effective politics of representation (Islam as a limiting and even authoritarian ideology).

Non-political anger shifts political preferences towards stronger leaders

Past research has shown that anger is associated with support for confrontational and punitive responses during crises, and notably with the endorsement of authoritarian ideologies. One important question is whether it is anger generated specifically in a political context that explains the association between anger and specific political preferences or whether any feeling of anger would be associated with changes in political attitudes. Here, we tested the effect of non-politically motivated incidental anger on the preference for strong leaders. In line with past research, we predicted that anger would increase preferences for strong leaders. Across two experiments, we exposed participants to an anger induction task. Before and after this experimental manipulation, we measured participants’ political leader preferences by asking them to choose between the faces of two leaders they would vote for in a hypothetical election. The level of self-reported anger predicted the probability of choosing more dominant-looking and less trustworthy-looking leaders after the induction, suggesting that even non-political incidental anger increases preferences for strong leaders.

Multilevel predictors of climate change beliefs in Africa.

Although Africa is the most vulnerable region to climate change, little research has focused on how climate change is perceived by Africans. Using random forest methodology, we analyze survey and climate data from second-order political boundaries to explore what predicts climate change beliefs in Africa. We include five different dimensions of climate change beliefs: climate change awareness, belief in anthropogenic climate change, risk perception, the need to stop climate change, and self-efficacy. Based on these criteria we identify five key results: (1) climate change in Africa is largely perceived through its negative impacts on agriculture; (2) actual changes in local climate conditions are related to climate change beliefs; (3) authoritarian and intolerant ideologies are associated to less climate change awareness, and a diminished risk perception and belief that it must be stopped; (4) women are less likely to be aware of climate change, and (5) not speaking French, English or Portuguese is linked to a hindered understanding of climate beliefs. Our combined results can help policy makers better understand the need to jointly consider the multilevel complexities of individual beliefs and hydroclimatic data for the development of more accurate adaptation and mitigation strategies to combat the impacts of climate change in Africa.

The foundations of Bolsonaro's support: Exploring the psychological underpinnings of political polarization in Brazil

AbstractThe election of the far‐right populist Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 Brazilian Presidential election was a major turning point in the history of the country and arguably part of a worldwide trend toward a form of ‘authoritarian populism’. The present study was conducted to explore psychological factors that may contribute to the appeal of a polarizing figure such as Bolsonaro, in particular, to determine whether measures of various ‘Moral Foundations’ or ‘Social Dominance Orientation’ (SDO) could best predict voting behaviour in the 2018 election. Given the cultural and economic context in Brazil, measures of religiosity and personal relative deprivation were included as additional potential explanatory variables. An online survey of 325 people from Brazil found that Bolsonaro voters scored higher on the ‘binding’ (Loyalty, Authority, Purity/Sanctity) and lower on the ‘individualizing’ (Care, Fairness) Moral Foundations than voters for the candidate of the left, Fernando Haddad. Moreover, Bolsonaro voters scored higher than Haddad voters on SDO and religiosity. When the various social, moral and religious measures were considered simultaneously in a binary logistic regression, it was endorsement of right‐wing authoritarian ideologies (SDO and the Authority Moral Foundation), rather than lack of endorsement of individualizing Moral Foundations that best distinguished Bolsonaro voters.

The fringe is the centre: Racism, pseudoscience and authoritarianism in the dominant English education policy network

The term ‘chumocracy’ has been used to describe a tendency within the UK's Conservative government to appoint friends and allies to key public positions; this image seriously underestimates the scale and influence of networks that shape policy and supply individuals to key roles. This paper maps networks that converge around conservative and sometimes extreme views on race and education. These networks include media figures, academics, public officials and a range of campaigning organisations. They are characterized by an authoritarian ideology, including hereditarian and pseudoscientific beliefs, that views Black and working-class populations as unstable and threatening. They shape policies that seek to silence critical debate about structural racism, while promoting an education characterised by intensified testing, selection, curricular control and strict discipline.

Authoritarianism: Change and Continuity in the Global Perspective

The article analyzes the specificity and distinctiveness of authoritarian regimes operating in a global network of complex and multidimensional international relations. The author of the article asks the question: to what extent the dynamically changing paradigm of authoritarian ideology is responsible for the occurrence of various types of tensions, rivalries, and antagonisms caused by authoritarian regimes, the effects and consequences of which affect not only national and regional political conditions but also cause severe international repercussions? The applied research method allows exposing the complex particularity of authoritarian regimes in the context of the multidimensional dynamics of recent geopolitical changes. It is crucial when a number of modern ideological trends often downplay the brutal nature of many authoritarian systems and even treat the “authoritarian model” – especially in the form of socialist autocracies – as a “specific historical phenomenon” trying to resolve many complex and multiple political and economic issues.

Model orzecznictwa w sprawach o wykroczenia w Polsce Ludowej

The authoritarian ideology that guided the authorities of the communist Polish state did not remain indifferent to the emerging model of jurisprudence in petty offence cases. Eliminating the possibility of court proceedings, the location of adjudicating boards in petty offence cases at national councils, the introduction of collegial jurisprudence exercised by the social factor, giving the jurisprudence an educational character, and abandoning it in favour of severe penalties implemented for hooligan petty offences — these are just some of the features that distinguish the jurisprudence model in petty offence cases in the People’s Republic of Poland. The pursuit of the authorities to subordinate the individuals by, on the one hand, handing over the jurisprudence in petty offence cases into the hands of the people, and, on the other hand, filling the adjudication boards with members subordinate to the authority, did not bring independence in the decisions issued. It is evidenced, for example, by the excessive repressive adjudication boards judgments issued against participants of the political crisis of March 1968. The Authors present the development of the model of jurisprudence in petty offence cases in the controversial period of the communist regime.

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless as the remediation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The heart of a dog. Towards the question of cultural memory

The article aims to examine the relationship between two texts: Loveless (Нелюбовь, 2017), the latest of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s feature films, and The Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце, 1925), one of Mikhail Bulgakov’s most popular short stories. The studies are focused on finding the parallels showing the work of cultural memory, which is understood – following Aleida Assmann’s and Astrid Erll’s findings – as the process of continuous remediation, retranscription and negotiation of essential ideas in the space of culture. Consequently, the author is not interested in treating Zvyagintsev’s text as the illustration of Bulgakov’s plot, but rather in discussing certain topics which are deposited in Russian literature and constantly reused and reinterpreted, creating the framework for communication across ‘the abyss of time’. The analogies between the selected texts are sought in the area of their structure, some thematic overlapping, the authors’ approach to the issue of the authoritarian ideology and the role of technology as well as in exploring the function of space as one of the narrative mechanisms, in particular in the context of the category of home and anti-home.

Pandemic, Exception and the Law: Notes on the Shattered Nomos of Europe

In this article I propose a critical evaluation of the current European politico-legal landscape that unfolds under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. My aim is to offer an analysis of the symbolic status of legality in this context and to reflect on its historical trajectory, by introducing it in a longer historical timescale than usually proposed as well as by insisting on the specific nexus between emergency legislation and authoritarian ideologies within Europe. In doing so I propose a new genealogy of the state of exception apt to articulate the relationship between the force of law, legal normativity, and ideology in modern capitalism. The thesis that I defend here is a simple one: the ongoing pandemic has operated a historical acceleration that the law, understood here as medium that articulates power symbolically in a public and ostensible manner, is not able to catch up with. To substantiate this thesis, I venture first to take stock of the existing theories, analyses and narratives on the relation between the pandemic and the politico-legal landscape of Europe. In doing so I shall focus first on traditional constitutional law accounts and on Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s criticism of the legal responses to the pandemic. Following this analysis, I move towards a situation of the pandemic within the sphere of the multiple crises befalling Europe that have become visible since 2015. At this stage I draw attention to the manifold layers of emergency legality and states of exception that have been sapping the liberal democratic nomos putatively defended within Europe. In a third move, I embark on a synoptical clarification of the relationship between law, ideology and the history of class struggle. In a fourth and last intervention I intend to assess the current nexus between the pandemic, exception and the law as a specific form of dissolution of the liberal nomos.

Expressions of authoritarianism in Facebook before the salience of news about crime in Peru

Under a context of public insecurity, the present study aims to analyse comments expressed in news about criminal acts published on the web pages of the main national newspapers during 2015. Comments were subject to content analysis and two analytical axes identified: (a) The expression of authoritarian beliefs and the implications of these beliefs for perceptions of offenders, and (b) a lack of trust in the public institutions of justice and its link with authoritarian response to criminality. The analysis of comments reveals a strong tendency towards endorsements of violent actions in dealing with crime supported by an authoritarian ideology. It was also found that distrust in the public institutions of justice is linked to support for extreme measures in order to eliminate the perceived threat. Limitations and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Dangerous Worldview and Perceived Sociopolitical Control: Two Mechanisms to Understand Trust in Authoritarian Political Leaders in Economically Threatening Contexts.

In this research we analyzed the relationship between threatening economic contexts (i.e., undergoing the economic crisis and having low socioeconomic status) and trust in authoritarian ideologies and leaders, regardless of the left–right political axis. Based on two theoretical approaches (i.e., the dual-process model and the compensatory control model), we argue that this relationship is mediated by dangerous worldview and low perceived sociopolitical control. We conducted two correlational studies with samples of the general population. In Study 1 (N = 185), we found that perceived threat from the economic crisis and low socioeconomic status were correlated with a higher dangerous worldview, which resulted in a more authoritarian ideology (i.e., authoritarianism) and finally in greater trust in an authoritarian political leader. In Study 2 (N = 413), we replicated the findings of Study 1 and demonstrated that low perceived sociopolitical control was associated with higher authoritarianism. Moreover, low perceived sociopolitical control partially mediated the relationship between dangerous worldview and authoritarianism. Overall, our results show that two economically threatening contexts (i.e., the economic crisis and low socioeconomic status) promote authoritarianism and trust in authoritarian leaders (with unspecified political orientation) through psychological processes (i.e., perception of the social world and perceived control). These results are useful to understand and combat the rise of authoritarianism in our societies during financially difficult times such as economic crises.

How Did Donald Trump Incite a Coup Attempt?

On 6 January 2021, supporters of Donald Trump after a Trump rally stormed the Capitol. This article asks: How Did Donald Trump incite a coup attempt? The presented research analyses parts of a dataset consisting of Trump’s most recent 8,736 tweets as well as Trump’s speech given at the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol.The article shows how Trump’s speech and use of Twitter triggered violence and that the coup was the consequence of a long chain of events that unfolded as a consequence of Trump’s authoritarian ideology, personality, and practices.

A neurocognitive model of ideological thinking.

Ideological behavior has traditionally been viewed as a product of social forces. Nonetheless, an emerging science suggests that ideological worldviews can also be understood in terms of neural and cognitive principles. The article proposes a neurocognitive model of ideological thinking, arguing that ideological worldviews may be manifestations of individuals' perceptual and cognitive systems. This model makes two claims. First, there are neurocognitive antecedents to ideological thinking: the brain's low-level neurocognitive dispositions influence its receptivity to ideological doctrines. Second, there are neurocognitive consequences to ideological engagement: strong exposure and adherence to ideological doctrines can shape perceptual and cognitive systems. This article details the neurocognitive model of ideological thinking and synthesizes the empirical evidence in support of its claims. The model postulates that there are bidirectional processes between the brain and the ideological environment, and so it can address the roles of situational and motivational factors in ideologically motivated action. This endeavor highlights that an interdisciplinary neurocognitive approach to ideologies can facilitate biologically informed accounts of the ideological brain and thus reveal who is most susceptible to extreme and authoritarian ideologies. By investigating the relationships between low-level perceptual processes and high-level ideological attitudes, we can develop a better grasp of our collective history as well as the mechanisms that may structure our political futures.

Social and competitive threat as situational factors moderating relationships between moral judgments and different components of authoritarian ideology

This paper presents research on the complexity of moral judgments underlying two components of authoritarian ideology: right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). Based on previous research, it was expected that people who were high on moral intuitions of Ingroup/loyalty and Authority/respect (Ethics of Community) should be high on RWA, whereas people who were high on moral intuitions of Care/harm and Fairness/reciprocity (Ethics of Autonomy) should be low on SDO. In more detailed hypotheses it was assumed that such general relationships would be moderated by situational factors - threat to social order and competitive threat, respectively. Two experimental studies were conducted: the first with manipulation of the threat to social order, and the second with manipulation of the competitive threat (N = 180 and 150, respectively). Both studies showed that Ethics of Community predicted clear increase in RWA, while the Ethics of Autonomy predicted considerable decrease in SDO. However positive relationships between Ingroup/loyalty and RWA as well as between Authority/respect and RWA were strongly reinforced by threat to social order, whereas the negative relationships between Care/harm and SDO as well as between Fairness/reciprocity and SDO diminished under situationally induced aggressive ‘Darwinian’ competition. The Ethics of Community appears as a moral basis for development of right-wing authoritarianism, and this relationship is especially strong when the social order is perceived as threatened. On the other hand, the Ethics of Autonomy can be seen as a moral basis for inhibition of social dominance orientation, but it loses the moral relevance in strongly competitive social environment.

Assessing the role of global media assistance in promoting public service broadcasting in Indonesia

In today’s globally connected society, the transformation of state-administered broadcasters into public service broadcasters (PSB) in new democracies is part of international media development projects that seek to democratize media systems following the collapse of authoritarian ideologies in the 1990s. This article traces the ‘what, who, when and how’ of international media assistance, with particular focus on projects that sought to transform Indonesia’s state-run broadcasters into PSBs during the 2000s–2010s. Drawing on extensive library research and semi-structured interviews, this article demonstrates the role of international agencies in the promotion of public service media in post-authoritarian Indonesia. They have influenced civil societies, policy-makers and media elites and promoted a belief that an independent and public-owned media enable people to better participate in a mediated public sphere. In this manner, international agencies have influenced policy design as Indonesia has transformed its national state-owned broadcast channels from state institutions into public ones. However, this article also finds that global intervention has failed to influence the more specific elements of PSB policy and implementation. In Indonesia, global work has focused on national regulatory design, leaving implementation to local actors. Furthermore, Indonesia’s PSB policy is but ‘an imitative version’ of PSB policies in developed western countries, lacking a detailed guide for transforming the country’s state-channels into true PSBs.